Wikipedia Article on Cindy's Torment

Cindy's Torment is a torture porn that sparked internet censorship debate in the early 1990s. Wikipedia had a article on this, but it was removed in late 2008 (as of 2009-02-19). The following is a mirror of the article that was on Wikipedia. (slightly edited.)

“Cindy's Torment”, a graphic sex story published in Spring of 1990 on Usenet, led to an early example of censorship in cyberspace. The posting by “Anonymous John”, which described repeated BDSM rape, sparked a debate on the limits of freedom of expression on Usenet.

The story itself details a governmental office
relationship where an East Asian secretary is forced by financial
pressure to submit into sexual slavery. Despite being posted in
“alt.sex.bondage”, the graphic nature, racial element, and
non-consensual aspect together combined to spur an outcry. While
different readers disagreed on which particular features of the story
were decisive in defining the story as “beyond the pale”, the
vociferousness of the objections led an unknown technically adept
person to erase all trace of the posting from Usenet. This attempted
act of censorship proved both the illusory nature of unrestrained
freedom on the fledgling Internet and the quixotic aspect of trying to
decisively control the spread of content within it. While the erasure
of the original posting was technically successful, a thing that had
previously been considered impossible, the notoriety of the story
ensured continued re-postings of (sometimes degraded) versions saved
on the mass storage of the newsgroup's readers. The story also led
many institutions such as the University of Waterloo to, for the first
time, exclude groups like “alt.sex.bondage” from their Usenet
servers. Soon afterwards, Waterloo excluded the entire “alt”
hierarchy, although there is dissent about whether this was intended
as an act of censorship. This event got occasioned mentioned in major
newspapers such as the “Houston Chronicle”.